Equal or not? Private versus public corrections services, programming, and climate

• Author: Joshua C. Cochran,John Wooldredge
• Date: 01 May 2019
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12429

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12429

RESEARCH ARTICLE

PRIVATE VS. PUBLIC CORRECTIONS SERVICES

Equal or not? Private versus public corrections

services, programming, and climate

John Wooldredge Joshua C. Cochran

University of Cincinnati

Correspondence

JohnWooldredge, School of Criminal Justice,

Universityof Cincinnati, P.O. Box210389,

Cincinnati,OH 45221-0389.

Email:john.wooldredge@uc.edu

Thisstudy was supported by the National Insti-

tuteof Justice (Award #2016-IJ-CX-0013).

Data wereprovided by the Ohio Department

ofRehabilitation and Cor rection (ODRC)

andfrom ICPSR 34317. The opinions, findings,

andconclusions are t hose of the authors and do

notnecessar ilyreflect those of t he U.S.Depart-

mentof Justice and/or the ODRC. We thank

ClaudiaAnderson for editorial assistance and

AndreaMontes and Daniel Mears for helpful

feedbackon earlier drafts.

Research Summary: More rigorous comparisons of pri-

vate and public corrections are needed to improve our

understanding of the effects of privatization. We develop

a three-step procedure for assessing equivalence and then

performance measures. To illustrate these arguments, we

provide an empirical descriptive analysis of two private

prisons and five structurally equivalent state-run prisons

in Ohio and document heterogeneity in resources, staff

climate, and inmate behaviors.

Policy Implications: In our discussion and analyses, we

underscore how comparability across private and public

corrections should not be assumed. Comparisons should be

focused on organizations with similar infrastructures and

then systematically used to assess client needs and pro-

gramming, client behavior, staff climate, and a diverse set

of outcomes that bear directly and indirectly on clients’

well-being. In so doing, researchers can better set the bar

that privatization is supposed to reach or exceed. They

can also conduct more credible impact assessments. Cost-

savings, for example, do not necessarily occur when con-

tracted services do not match those offered through public

corrections or when clientele differ dramatically between a

private and a public organization.

KEYWORDS

corrections, prisons, privatization, programming

Criminology & Public Policy. 2019;18:295–321. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2019 American Society of Criminology 295

296 WOOLDREDGE AND COCHRAN

1INTRODUCTION

Despite controversies surrounding correctional privatization, limited knowledge exists about the rela-

tive contributions offered by private versuspublic services, prog rams,and institutions (Lindsey,Mears,

& Cochran, 2016; Makarios & Maahs, 2012). Extant studies in which private versus state-run correc-

tional institutions and programs are compared are scarce and have been declining in number since the

mid-2000s (Volokh, 2013). There is, then, an urgency to improve knowledge of the effectsand relative

cost-savings of privatization.

We argue that making such advancements requires paying closer attention to the equivalency, or

lack thereof, between private and state-run corrections. In empirical studies, scholars have illustrated

how evaluation of privatization requiresnuance and should include comparisons across clientele, treat-

ment, philosophical emphases (rehabilitation, incapacitation, or deterrence), and context (Gaes, Camp,

Nelson, & Saylor, 2004; Lindseyet al., 2016; Logan, 1992). But scholars typically have not rigorously

accounted for these or other dimensions, which undermines evaluations of any cost-savings or other

possible improvements of correctional privatization. Thus, not only is there a lack of principles for

establishing equivalency in the privatization literature, but equivalency generally has not been estab-

lished in assessments of services. Therefore, little in fact is known about whether privatized corrections

is more or is less effective or cost-efficient than public corrections.

Empirical assessments in which the equivalence of private relative to public services is better con-

sidered are critical for at least two reasons. First, privatization is expected to “do” corrections cheaper

but with the same or better quality. Thus, establishing equivalency is important for establishing the

status quo that privately run corrections should at least be matching if not exceeding. Second, credi-

ble assessments of cost and other impacts can only occur in instances of such equivalency. As stated,

however, the reported findings in the privatization literature lack general principles for establishing

equivalency between private and state-run corrections.

Our goal in this article, then, is threefold. First, we argue that impact evaluations of privatization

require more rigorous consideration of equivalency but that identifying proper counterfactuals is inher-

ently challenging. We identify four key dimensions for making such comparisons that apply to priva-

tization both in community corrections and in custodial institutions. By using these dimensions, we

propose researchers follow a three-step process when undertaking evaluations: (1) Match on structural

characteristics; (2) assess equivalency in services, programming, and climate; and then (3) compare

on performance. Second, with use of Ohio prisons as a case study, we conduct an empirical compari-

son across our four dimensions of private and state-run prison facilities to illustrate the importance of

assessing equivalence. Third, and most broadly, we argue that given the absence of a body of studies

in which equivalency is established, whether privatized corrections is cost-efficient remains unknown.

Our demonstration with Ohio prisons will underscore the challenges to assessing the cost efficiency of

privatized corrections. These challenges have not been overcomein related studies, and so the validity

of existing impact and cost-efficiency assessments is unknown.

2PRIOR RESEARCH ON THE EQUIVALENCE

OF PRIVATIZED CORRECTIONS

Privatization, as outlined in this issue (Latessa & Lovins, 2019, this issue) and in prior work (Harding,

2001; Hart, Shleifer, & Vishny, 1997; Lindsey et al., 2016), might do one or a combination of three

things for corrections systems. First, it might save taxpayerdollars (Logan & Rausch, 1985; Perrone &

Pratt, 2003; Pratt & Maahs, 1999). Private, for-profit companies will argue that they can operate more